That night, the moon was bright and the stars were sparse. All things were quiet, yet all things were also stirring back to life.
After a long day’s work, the birds had settled on the branches. As was their routine, they preened their feathers one last time before tucking themselves into their nests for the night.
They were completely oblivious to the pair of cold, sinister eyes that had opened right beneath them. Slithering out from the fallen leaves, a snake flicked its forked tongue, glanced up at the nest, and then began to crawl noiselessly up the tree trunk in search of its meal.
The mouse at the base of the tree trembled at the sound of its approach.
The bird, however, had no idea that disaster was looming.
Just as the long snake reached the branch and was about to strike—
Whoosh!
A sudden, powerful gust of wind swept through the mountainside.
The snake flinched and immediately recoiled.
It flicked its tongue, turning its gaze toward the source.
And it saw—this was no gust of wind at all! It was a man, sprinting swiftly through the mountains!
Through the sensory feedback from its tongue, it detected that this man harbored terrifying energy within him.
Its animal instincts stirred, and it began to crave that energy.
So, without hesitation, it changed its target and prepared to lunge at the man.
But just then—
Swish!
The sharp sound of something cutting through the air rang out.
Before the snake could even react, it saw a bolt as thick as two fingers hurtling toward it.
The next second—
Thump!
With a muffled impact, the crossbow bolt pierced right through the snake’s head, pinning it firmly to the tree.
Rustle, rustle—
The birds in the forest were startled and took flight in a flurry.
“Did we get him?”
Hearing the dull thud, the Sunglasses Man pressed his earpiece and asked.
“No. It was a snake.”
A man’s voice came through the earpiece, sounding somewhat frustrated: “The terrain here is too complicated, and he’s running too fast—we can’t get a lock on him at all. Damn it, I knew we should have brought guns.”
At that, the Sunglasses Man didn’t respond. Instead, he asked, “Team C, what’s the situation with the police?”
“They’ve already dispatched officers and are heading our way right now. They’re expected to reach the foot of the mountain in about ten minutes. My suggestion is to retreat immediately!”
The voice urged.
Upon hearing this, both the Sunglasses Man and Team B wore grave expressions.
Back at the shopping mall, when they had let Jiang Nian find an opportunity to escape, they had known that their situation had shifted from an active stance to a passive one.
But what they hadn’t anticipated was just how passive it had become.
It had barely been ten minutes, and the police had already pinpointed their location.
“Did he send out a location ping?”
The Sunglasses Man mused to himself.
He thought for a moment, then pressed his earpiece: “Team C, activate the signal jammer. Get ready. If we haven’t caught Jiang Nian in ten minutes, retreat immediately!”
The Sunglasses Man knew perfectly well that once they were exposed, they should leave at once. Every extra second they spent in Great Xia was another second of heightened risk.
But he wasn’t willing to give up!
Because if it weren’t for Jiang Nian, their mission would have already succeeded—they would have met the organization’s ‘Holy Lord’ by now.
But Jiang Nian had interrupted them.
Not only had they failed to meet the Holy Lord, but they would also face punishment from the organization upon their return.
That was something the Sunglasses Man simply couldn’t accept. So he decided that, before leaving, he would take Jiang Nian with him.
Hearing this, Team C said nothing more. They simply replied with a “Understood,” and began their operations.
Soon, an inexplicable electromagnetic pulse was emitted.
But the first thing to show any abnormality wasn’t their phones—it was Jiang Nian!
As we all know, phones connect to the internet by linking, within a certain frequency range, to radio waves emitted by signal towers, thereby completing data transmission.
Signal jammers, on the other hand, disrupt the connection between the phone and the signal tower by emitting low-frequency signals. This prevents the phone from establishing a link with the tower, effectively blocking the signal.
Generally speaking, activating a jammer doesn’t affect humans at all.
Because the frequencies emitted by the jammer are simply beyond human perception—only some animals can hear them.
However, due to his martial arts training, Jiang Nian’s body had been continuously evolving toward a “perfect organism” without him even realizing it.
This meant he could clearly perceive that strange, buzzing noise when the signal jammer was activated.
“What’s that?”
Hearing the sound, Jiang Nian stopped behind a rock, frowning.
He felt the noise was oddly familiar.
It sounded just like the noise he’d heard a while back, when he’d recently broken through to First-Class Martial Artist and was fiddling with his phone.
So he pulled out his phone and looked closely.
Sure enough, after that noise, the status bar on his phone—which had been showing full signal—now displayed “No Service.”
“This is…”
Jiang Nian let out a soft exclamation and immediately realized the other side had likely activated some kind of signal-jamming device.
That’s why this had happened.
“Damn it, they’ve got quite the bag of tricks!”
Jiang Nian muttered under his breath.
The reason he had led the Sunglasses Man and his group up the mountain was twofold.
First, out in the open flatlands, no matter how fast he could run, he couldn’t outrun a car—they would eventually catch up. And they were carrying heavy weaponry; a long-range attack would be hard to defend against.
But in the mountains, he had a distinct advantage. The terrain was complex, full of obstacles, and as a martial artist, his perception was sharp, making it easier for him to hide and evade.
His plan was to keep this group entangled here until the police, using real-time location tracking, arrived and handled them.
But now, waiting for the police to show up clearly wasn’t realistic.
After all, the mountain was huge.
Without location tracking, who knew how long it would take the police to find him?
In that case…
Jiang Nian surveyed the complex surroundings and, after carefully reassessing his own abilities, his resolve grew stronger. He took a deep breath.
“Now the tables have turned!”
“I’m already a First-Class Martial Artist. Maybe I’ve been a little too cautious. Catching an arrow with my bare hands… that might not be impossible. But I’ll need to test it out first.”
“Master, we’ve lost the location signal!”
Just as Jiang Nian was contemplating his next move, on the other side, back in the police car en route, Li noticed that Jiang Nian’s shared location had suddenly cut out. He quickly reported this to the middle-aged man.
Hearing this, the middle-aged man frowned and asked, “What happened? Is it his phone?”
“No, it seems… the signal has been cut off.”
Li checked his phone and offered his guess.
At that, a glint of surprise flashed in the middle-aged man’s eyes.
Although it was just after 2012, signal towers were already widespread.
Even remote mountain hollows had reception.
And the mountain Jiang Nian was on wasn’t even a hollow—it was just on the outskirts of Spring City.
There was no way the signal there should be problematic.
Unless—
“They have a signal jammer!”
Realizing this, the middle-aged man’s expression grew serious.
He had suspected that this group was no ordinary bunch. But now he realized he had underestimated them.
A crossbow and bolts as thick as two fingers could perhaps still be handcrafted.
But a signal jammer capable of covering an entire mountain?
That could only be bought!
And for ordinary people, purchasing one required registration.
Would these criminals register?
Obviously not!
If they were that law-abiding, today’s incident wouldn’t have happened at all.
“Drive faster.”
The middle-aged man urged.
The officer driving nodded and floored the accelerator.
With a roar, the police car sped onward, charging up the mountain.
——-
Meanwhile, at Spring City International Airport.
As the plane touched down with a roar, a tall, slender woman in sunglasses stepped off.
She made her way to the underground parking lot with practiced ease, got into her car, and then removed her sunglasses, revealing a stunningly beautiful face.
It was Yang Mi!
She looked at the messages on her phone and a smile curled across her lips.
“Bet you didn’t see this coming, did you?”
“Half a month and not a single message from you, Jiang Nian. You’d better not be fooling around out there.”
“Otherwise, I’ll have to show you exactly why roses are so red!”
Yang Mi drove off, heading toward the scene, ready to surprise Jiang Nian.
But when she arrived, disguised, at the venue…
She saw the director, Zhang Zhiliang, holding a microphone, looking apologetically at the audience and saying:
“I’m sorry, everyone. Our lead actor and director encountered some unexpected issues on their way here.”
“Today’s performance may have to be cancelled for now.”
At that, the crowd erupted in boos.
“What the hell? I’ve been waiting here for so long, and now you’re telling me you’re ditching us?!”
“Exactly! You performed just fine in other cities—no problems at all. But the moment you come to our city, you pull this crap? Are you throwing your weight around?!”
“Fuck you! Refund our money!”
“?? Hey, wait a minute. Did you even buy a ticket, man?”
“No, I didn’t. But I wanted to shout that! Goddamn it, you’re wasting our time. You bastards, how could you do this to us?!”
“He’s right! I’ve waited so long, and I was planning to bring my whole family to see the movie when it comes out. But after this? Go watch it? Watch your mother!”
“…”
The crowd was in an uproar.
They weren’t buying Zhang Zhiliang’s excuses.
After all, the reason they had come—besides being curious—was because they were fans of the production.
And as fans, who wouldn’t want to meet the director and the lead actor in person before the movie’s release?
Yet they had come, waited for so long, and all they got was a “something came up” and a dismissal.
Who could tolerate that?
Zhang Zhiliang understood their frustration perfectly. But he was in a tough spot too.
Xu Ke had left, and no one knew when he’d be back.
As for Jiang Nian, word was he was being hunted—no one knew the specifics.
He couldn’t just keep stalling here forever.
What if Xu Ke and Jiang Nian never came back? The whole thing would blow up in his face!
So even though he knew this wasn’t the right move, he had no choice.
After all, a short sharp pain was better than a long lingering one.
Getting cursed out now was still better than having people climb onto the stage and start a real-life brawl.
Zhang Zhiliang bowed repeatedly:
“I’m terribly sorry, everyone. I truly am. But today, there’s simply no way around it.”
“This came out of nowhere, and I hope you can all understand.”
Seeing him like this, even though people were itching to punch the bastard, there was nothing they could do.
They just waved their hands, cursed under their breath, and left in disgust.
On the sidelines, Yang Mi had watched the entire scene, her brows knitted tightly together.
So after Zhang Zhiliang stepped off the stage, she walked over and asked, “Director Zhang, what exactly happened?”
Zhang Zhiliang was startled and was about to ask “Who are you?” when Yang Mi unwrapped her scarf, took off her hat, and removed her sunglasses, revealing her fox-like, charming face.
The question died in Zhang Zhiliang’s throat. He forced a smile and said, “Ah, Ms. Yang! What brings you all the way here?”
“I came to see Jiang Nian. What happened to him? Why isn’t he here?”
Yang Mi got straight to the point, her goal crystal clear.
Hearing this, Zhang Zhiliang’s face stiffened, and his gaze flickered nervously.
He scratched his head: “Ah, you mean Teacher Jiang? Teacher Jiang, he…”
“What happened to him? Is something wrong?”
“More or less…”
“What?”
Yang Mi froze, then immediately pressed for more information.
After learning through Zhang Zhiliang that Jiang Nian was currently being hunted, Yang Mi panicked.
The situation had spiraled far beyond anything she had initially anticipated!
She immediately rushed to the police station, desperate to find out exactly what was going on.
——-
Meanwhile, up in the mountains,
Team B members were holding their crossbows, wearing night-vision goggles, and scouring the area with heightened vigilance, searching for any trace of Jiang Nian.
Strangely enough, after that last sighting, Jiang Nian seemed to have vanished into thin air.
They had been searching for several minutes, but hadn’t found a single trace.
“Did he get away?”
One of the men murmured, finding it odd. He pressed his earpiece: “This is B-411. Have you guys found him yet?”
His voice trailed off, and a reply came through: “This is B-417. No abnormalities on site. Target not found.”
“What about the others?” B-411 asked.
But every response was the same as B-417’s—all clear, no target found.
Hearing that, B-411 frowned. He glanced at his watch and was about to say, “If we can’t find him, regroup with Team C and retreat,” when—
Suddenly—
Rustle…
A faint sound came from ahead of B-411, immediately catching his attention.
He focused his gaze toward the source. Through his night-vision goggles, he saw a figure quickly dart past him.
At this, B-411’s spirits lifted. He pressed his earpiece and whispered: “This is B-411. I’ve spotted something unusual. Observing now. Over.”
With that, he hoisted his crossbow, slowed his pace, and cautiously approached the tree where the figure had disappeared.
One meter…
Two meters…
As he got closer to the tree, B-411’s heart began to race.
As the leader of Team Two, he had been present when Sunglasses Man and A-Long had confronted Jiang Nian earlier. He had clearly witnessed how Jiang Nian had sent A-Long flying with a single slap, knocking him unconscious.
And when Jiang Nian ran, he had rendezvoused with Sunglasses Man and seen the hollowed chest of the crew-cut man.
So he knew just how terrifying Jiang Nian’s strength was.
And he knew full well how dangerous it was for him to be advancing so recklessly.
But… B-411 had no choice.
The tree was less than ten meters away.
And his crossbow was a bolt-action type—after firing one shot, he’d have to reload.
Though he had practiced enough to reload in just three seconds, if Jiang Nian seized that window to close the distance, B-411 would be done for.
Of course, he could play it safe, call his teammates over, and set up an ambush together.
But there was a problem: his teammates would take time to arrive. And Jiang Nian wasn’t stupid—if he sensed danger, he’d bolt.
Besides, B-411 still couldn’t confirm that the figure was actually Jiang Nian.
What if it was just an animal?
Hiss… hoo…
Hiss… hoo…
“Lord, protect me.”
After several deep breaths, B-411 muttered a silent prayer. When he was less than five meters from the tree, he suddenly rolled to the side and leaped.
The view behind the tree opened up. B-411 raised his crossbow and looked closely.
And there, behind the tree, there was no person at all—just a phone, wrapped in leaves and twigs, glowing brightly!
But that wasn’t the main point. The main point was that after that leap, B-411 noticed that the fallen leaves beneath his feet felt unusually loose and fluffy.
That was strange for Spring City, which had already entered winter.
Sensing something off, B-411 looked down—and saw that buried beneath a thick layer of fallen leaves, over twenty centimeters deep, a man was lying there, calmly staring back at him.
Their eyes met.
The man grinned, revealing a full set of twenty-four neat, pearly white teeth.
“Oh my, you actually found me. Well then, I guess it’s my turn to be ‘it’ now.”
B-411: “!!!”
